The Galle Literary Festival was launched on Wednesday at the Martin Wickremasinghe museum in Koggala, followed by a reception at the luxurious Fortress Hotel in Koggala, where guests, writers, dignitaries, and luminaries assembled to celebrate the beginning of four days of panel discussions, workshops, and even more parties.
This year the festival was all about internationalism in literary form. The schedule included a great deal of events with travel and exploration as their themes and featured writers who the festival’s media liaison, Menika van der Poorten described as, “truly international in their outlook and approach.”
At the evening’s cocktail party, Moses Isegawa of Uganda, Thomas Kenneally of Australia, Pico Iyer and Colin Thubron of Britain to name a few, blended with the crowd of Sri Lankan poets, novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers.
“We don’t always confront each other’s work,” said the gregarious Kenneally, who observed that for the majority of people, exposure to Sri Lankan literature consists of purchasing a Michael Ondaatje book.
Kenneally appeared pleased with the cultural exchange thus far and in particular with what he described as the notable lack of pretension among Sri Lankan authors.
Referring to author Shehan Karunatilaka’s biography, in which Karunatilaka notes that he was born in Galle and potty trained in the Fort, Kenneally said, “This is highly specific. One can’t imagine the great figures of American literature being either as frank or disarming as that.”
Karunatilaka, author of The Painter, was one of several young Sri Lankans featured at the festival’s formal opening ceremony at the Martin Wickremasinghe Museum, a place that filmmaker Tissa Abeysekera described in his opening remarks as “hallowed ground” for Sri Lankan writers.
Reading from his current literary undertaking, a novel narrated by a dying sportswriter, Karunatilaka said, “Not world peace or cancer cures or saving whales. God, if he exists, can look into those. No. In my humble opinion, what the world needs most is a halfway decent documentary on Sri Lankan cricket.”
Chamali Kariyawasam, who recently released her first anthology, Sylphlike Ether, and Mike Masilamani both read from their poetry, and Colombo-native Shehani Gomes read an excerpt from her recently published novel Learning to Fly.
The ceremony’s only solemn note came during writer Romesh Gunesekera’s turn at the podium, during which he vaguely referenced the country’s current political climate.
“Obviously, there are things happening that we’re all aware of,” said Gunesekera. “There are things beneath the surface that are said and not said. I think it’s worth saying some of them.”
Gunesekera described the creation of a book or piece of writing as a small act of defiance against countervailing forces of destruction. “It’s where the individual voice lives and where we find space for these voices to survive,” he said. “I think there are more and more people who want new voices.”
Despite the moment of gravity, spirits remained high as the ceremony concluded and guests walked across the road to the Fortress Hotel, where an abundance of cocktails was served as the sun set behind the blue infinity pool and silhouetted the stilt fisherman still at work.
When the moderately more-inebriated crowd finally began to partake of dinner, one guest noted that all the Easterners were crowded around the table serving Western fare, while all the Westerners were lining up patiently for string hoppers and sambol. Indeed, it appeared that so far as the buffet was concerned, the festival’s goal of creating a forum for internationalism was a success.
The Galle Literary Festival ends today with a highlight of the morning’s programme being controversial feminist icon Germaine Greer in a session titled ‘Who put the Post into Post-feminism’ at the Jetwing Lighthouse Hotel at 11.15 a.m.
(See ST Magazine for interviews with authors Thomas Keneally and Michael Morpurgo) |
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